Clean Power Ordinance Coming To A Vote?

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One alderman called the principal when his daughter wasn't admitted to the school she applied to.

Update: Two City Council committees put off the vote on Chicago’s Clean Power Ordinance. Ald. Virginia Rugai (19th) and Ald. James Balcer (11th) announced no vote would be taken because the issue requires more investigation.

Chicago’s Clean Power Ordinance is finally coming before a City Council committee this morning, but you don’t have to be at City Hall to follow along. Supporters of the ordinance will be live-tweeting about the Health and Energy, Environment and Public Utilities Committee meeting, on the website Where’s My Walderman?

You can follow the meeting on the site, or on Twitter, by typing in the hashtags #chicoal, and #waldoX, with the alderman’s ward number in place of the X. So, for example, lead sponsor Joe Moore would be #waldo49.

The ordinance, which would force the Southwest Side’s Fisk and Crawford power plants to switch from coal to gas, was introduced last year. It finally has a chance to pass because 25th Ward Ald. Danny Solis was forced into a runoff.

Solis, whose ward includes the Fisk plant, had opposed the ordinance. Solis’s runoff opponent, Cuauhtemoc Morfin, made the Clean Power Ordinance his number one campaign issue, forcing Solis to concede that maybe his constituents don’t want to breathe sooty air. 22nd Ward Ald. Ricardo Munoz, who represents the Crawford plant, endorsed the ordinance last year.

Aldermen usually defer to each other on neighborhood issues, so now that the two aldermen whose wards are affected both endorse the Clean Power Ordinance, it has a good chance to come up for a vote before the full council on May 4 -- Mayor Daley’s last meeting.